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The narrow purpose of this article is to review de Fremery’s (2024) book about the bibliographic foundations of information science. The broader purpose is to consider the actual as well as the potential relevance of the field(s) of bibliography for information science besides the book under review.

This review essay examines the arguments put forward by de Fremery (2024), introduces concepts and traditional lore from the study of bibliography and presents internal conflicts or paradigms in the field of bibliography. It relates this information to foundational issues in information science.

De Fremery’s basic ambition of basing information science in the field of bibliography is important, and so is the attempt to consider bibliography in relation to contemporary information technologies such as machine learning and data science. The book under review fails, however, to describe the relations between different positions in bibliography, such as enumerative, analytical, descriptive, critical and historical bibliography in relation to information science. It rather tends to make problematic claims, for example, that scientific experiments are based on bibliographical methods, and to describe the relation of bibliography to information science on the basis of such interpretations. Nonetheless, the book is a serious attempt to consider the field of bibliography and thereby support the focus on documents in information science.

Information science often suffers because of ambiguities in the concept of information. When information science is understood as the study of literature-based answering, much else falls into place. The field of bibliography is a core concept for this understanding and re-orientation of information science, for example, by establishing the core relation between bibliography, information searching and knowledge organization.

This study aims to analyze the adoption of open access (OA) publishing in social sciences within central universities in India, focusing on various aspects such as the growth of OA literature, the use of different OA routes and collaboration patterns in OA publications.

Ten central universities were selected based on their rankings in the National Institute Ranking Framework 2022. Data on OA publishing in social sciences were collected from the Social Science Citation Index of the Web of Science (WoS) database using the advanced search query “(CU=India OR AD=India) AND PY=(2003–2022) NOT PY=(2023).” Data analysis was conducted using MS Excel (v16.0), BibExcel (version 2017), Biblioshiny (version 4.1.2) and Google Open Refine (version 3.7).

The study found that 30.40% of total publications were OA, with BHU as leading institute in OA publishing. OA publishing in social sciences saw a consistent increase, peaking in 2022 with 209 publications. “Sustainability” and “Plos One” were among the top ten journals, with 103 and 34 OA papers, respectively. OA publications had a higher mean citation rate than closed access publications. Collaboration with seven and nine authors had higher mean citation rates, while six-author collaborations were lower. Indian researchers received the most citations collaborating with the USA, UK and Australia. The Netherlands and Saudi Arabia received the fewer citations, when collaborating with Indian authors.

The study’s main limitation is its reliance on WoS data, excluding many OA publications from smaller or specialized journals. Additionally, the focus on high-ranked central universities may not represent the entire academic landscape, as OA publishing patterns vary across other institutions and disciplines.

The study’s findings suggest that advancing OA publishing in social sciences at Indian universities requires raising awareness of OA concepts, enhancing institutional support and policies and informing researchers about funding opportunities. Emphasizing Gold OA and funding publication fees can broaden access to research. Universities with low OA ratios should adopt similar policies, mandate public research deposits and develop technical infrastructure. Encouraging multi-author collaborations can boost research impact and citation rates. Insights from the study can help institutions and policymakers shape effective OA strategies, enhancing the visibility and impact of social science research.

This is the first study analyzing the adoption of OA in the field of social sciences in high-ranked central universities in India. It has implications for promoting OA and increasing accessibility to research outputs. Universities with higher OA ratios can lead in this regard and encourage others to adopt similar practices for overall OA growth.

There is a need for precollege learning designs that empower youth to be epistemic agents in contexts that intersect burgeoning areas of computing, big data and social media. The purpose of this study is to explore how “sandbox” or open-inquiry data science with social media supports learning.

This paper offers vignettes from an illustrative youth study case that highlights the pedagogical prospects and obstacles tied to designing for open-ended inquiry with computational data science to access or “scrape” Twitter/X. The youth case showcases how social media can be taken up productively and in ways that facilitate epistemological agency, an approach where individuals actively shape understanding and knowledge-creation processes, highlighting the potentially transformative impact this approach might have in empowering learners to engage productively.

The authors identify three key affordances for learning that emerged from the illustrative case: (1) flexible opportunities for content-specific domain mastery, (2) situated inquiry that embodies next-generation science practices and (3) embedded computational skill development. The authors discuss these findings in relation to contemporary education needs to broaden participation in data science and computing.

To address challenges in current data science education associated with supporting sustained and productive engagement in computing-based data science, the authors leverage a “sandbox” approach – an original pedagogical framework to support open inquiry with precollege groups. The authors demonstrate how “big data” drawn from social media with high school-aged youth supports learning designs and outcomes by emphasizing learner interests and authentic practice.

The article aims to give an overview of the history and the achieved status of information science in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) with an emphasis on the organisation of information science and practice in the GDR and on the theoretical foundations of information science.

Primarily, this article is based upon critical literature studies, especially German-language books and journal articles, but the empirical basis also includes some unpublished sources (e.g. letters from information scientists from the GDR).

There are interesting results concerning the roots of information science in cybernetics, philosophy and the practical area of documentation. The naming of this knowledge field as “informatics”, “informatics of science” or “information and documentation science” is partly very distinct from Western conceptions. We found different theoretical foundations for information science including the approaches of Bonitz, Engelbert, Koblitz and Groß and Fuchs-Kittowski. In the GDR, information science and information practice were centralised, but through the information system science and technology, they were consistently accessible at all levels of professional work. With German reunification, information practice and its institutions, as well as GDR’s information science efforts, disappeared.

The article gives hints on the importance on and the survival of some GDR approaches in contemporary information science, but those developments should be analysed in much more detail.

This is the first overview article on the state and entire development of information science in the GDR.

The purpose of this paper is to characterize library and information science (LIS) as fragmenting discipline both historically and by applying Whitley’s (1984) theory about the organization of sciences and Fuchs’ (1993) theory about scientific change.

The study combines historical source analysis with conceptual and theoretical analysis for characterizing LIS. An attempt is made to empirically validate the distinction between LIS context, L&I services and information seeking as fragmented adhocracies and information retrieval and scientific communication (scientometrics) as technologically integrated bureaucracies.

The origin of fragmentation in LIS due the contributions of other disciplines can be traced in the 1960s and 1970s for solving the problems produced by the growth of scientific literature. Computer science and business established academic programs and started research relevant to LIS community focusing on information retrieval and bibliometrics. This has led to differing research interests between LIS and other disciplines concerning research topics and methods. LIS has been characterized as fragmented adhocracy as a whole, but we make a distinction between research topics LIS context, L&I services and information seeking as fragmented adhocracies and information retrieval and scientific communication (scientometrics) as technologically integrated bureaucracies.

The paper provides an elaborated historical perspective on the fragmentation of LIS in the pressure of other disciplines. It also characterizes LIS as discipline in a fresh way by applying Whitley’s (1984) theory.

In this chapter, we examine the negative impact of excessive teacher entitlement on school life. We argue that teacher entitlement goes beyond individual traits, intricately linked to sociocultural processes and power dynamics within and outside educational institutions. The focus is on theoretical foundations to understand pedagogical practices in science education, highlighting two key components contributing to excessive teacher entitlement. First, we discuss the relationship between teachers and scientific knowledge, emphasising that a narrow view of science may create a strong hierarchical dynamic in classrooms, with teachers positioned as knowledgeable authorities and neglecting students' needs. Second, the organisation of interaction between teachers and students is explored, emphasising how teachers perceive and wield authority. We recognise the limitations of common critiques of authority in science education, as they may lead to excessive indulgence or indifference. We propose a teaching framework based on cultural-historical activity theory to address or prevent excessive teacher entitlement in science classrooms. While acknowledging the phenomenon's complexity, the framework is presented as a pedagogical reorientation addressing identified underpinnings. The study concludes by suggesting that the proposed framework, grounded in science education experiences, could serve as a foundation for understanding and addressing excessive teacher entitlement across various academic fields. We suggest that the authoritative teacher style aims to balance extremes, providing an alternative to authoritarianism while avoiding carelessness. Additionally, the scientific-cultural inquiry promotes a pluralist approach to knowledge, challenging the notion of absolute truth in science education.

The purpose of this paper is to find out which research topics and methods in information science (IS) articles are used in other disciplines as indicated by citations.

The study analyzes citations to articles in IS published in 31 scholarly IS journals in 2015. The study employs content analysis of articles published in 2015 receiving citations from publication venues representing IS and other disciplines in the citation window 2015–2021. The unit of analysis is the article-citing discipline pair. The data set consists of 1178 IS articles cited altogether 25 K times through 5 K publication venues. Each citation is seen as a contribution to the citing document’s discipline by the cited article, which represents some IS subareas and methodologies, and the author team's disciplinary composition, which is inferred from the authors’ affiliations.

The results show that the citation profiles of disciplines vary depending on research topics, methods and author disciplines. Disciplines external to IS are typically cited in IS articles authored by scholars with the same background. Thus, the export of ideas from IS to other disciplines is evidently smaller than the earlier findings claim. IS should not be credited for contributions by other disciplines published in IS literature.

This study is the first to analyze which research topics and methods in the articles of IS are of use in other disciplines as indicated by citations.

This analysis of chat reference transcripts assesses differences in how librarians and graduate assistants (GAs) incorporate teaching strategies in responding to chat reference inquiries in social sciences, health sciences, humanities, STEM and business/economics at a large, public R1 university in the United States.

Researchers with disciplinary assignments in five different subject domains conducted qualitative analysis of a purposive sample of 982 transcripts of chat interactions during four semesters in 2021 and 2022.

Some form of information literacy instruction (ILI) occurred in 58% of the transcripts, with slightly less teaching occurring in social sciences inquiries than in other subject areas. Of transcripts that included teaching strategies, search procedures predominated, followed by a mix of concepts and procedures, and the least with concepts only. Chat providers taught concepts specific to social sciences, health sciences and humanities, but not to STEM or business.

The study compares transcripts at one institution; findings may be most applicable to large, research institutions that seek to incorporate ILI in online reference services.

Chat reference training should include best practices for ILI relevant to specific subject domains for providers without background in those disciplines and recommendations for referrals to subject specialists.

Existing ILI literature does not address the question of how chat providers teach concepts rooted in a specific subject domain or offer a comparison of teaching strategies employed in different disciplines, by librarians versus GAs or staff.

This study aims to ascertain the personal characteristics of a group of successful academic entrepreneurs in a South African university enterprise and the prevalent barriers and enablers to their entrepreneurial endeavour.

The authors used a Delphi process to identify and rank the characteristics, enablers, barriers and behaviours of entrepreneurial academics, with a Nominal Group Technique applied to establish challenges they encounter managing their enterprise and to propose solutions.

Perseverance, resilience and innovation are critical personal characteristics, while collaborative networks, efficient research infrastructure and established research competence are essential for success. The university’s support for entrepreneurship is a significant enabler, with unnecessary bureaucracy and poor access to project and general enterprise funding an impediment. Successful academic entrepreneurs have strong leadership, and effective management and communication skills.

The main limitation is the small study participant group drawn from a single university enterprise, which complicates generalisability. The study supported the use of Krueger’s (2009) entrepreneurial intentions model for low- and middle-income country (LMIC) academic entrepreneur investigation but proposed the inclusion of mitigators to entrepreneurial activation to recognise contextual deficiencies and challenges.

Skills-deficient LMIC universities should extensively and directly support their entrepreneurial academics to overcome their contextual deficiencies and challenging environment.

This study contributes to addressing the paucity of academic entrepreneur research in LMIC contexts by identifying LMIC-specific factors that inhibit the entrepreneur’s movement from entrepreneurial intention to entrepreneurial action.

This research uses a multifaceted approach to develop an MPA/MPP curriculum to support a data science track within the existing MPA/MPP programs by identifying the core and elective areas needed.

The approach includes (1) identifying a suitable structure for MPA/MPP programs which can allow the program to develop its capacity to train students with the data science and general public administration skills to solve public policy problems and leave explicit space for local experimentation and modification; (2) defining bridging modules and required modules for the MPA/MPP programs; and (3) developing of data science track thought to make suggestions for the inclusion of suitable data science modules into the data science track and benchmarking the data science modules suggested with the best practices developed by other professional bodies. The authors review 46 NASPAA-accredited MPA/MPP programs from 40 (or 22.7%) schools to identify the suitable required modules and some potential data science and analytics courses that MPA/MPP programs currently provide as electives.

The proposal includes a three-course (six–nine credits, not counted in the program but as prerequisites) bridging module, a nine-course (27 credits) required module and a five-course (15 credits) data science track/concentration.

This work can provide a starting point for the public administration education community to develop graduate programs focusing on data science to cater to the needs of both public managers and society at large.